


i'm not giving up (i'm just giving in)

by Digitalis_Obscura



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (i was writing it that way), Canon-Typical Body Horror, Canon-Typical Mentions of Kidnapping, Gen, Season 3 AU, basically takes places during seasons three and four, but its not explicitly romanitc, completely wrecked by recent canon, except i thought i could write it without referencing a timeline, so i ended up putting season three canon into a blender and pulling things out at random, this can be read as romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 08:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Digitalis_Obscura/pseuds/Digitalis_Obscura
Summary: Michael finds the Archivist fascinating. Jonathan Sims never learned to stay away from things he didn't understand.Or:An unlikely companionship and the trials of humanity.-“Okay, tell me, why are you here?”“I wanted to see you. You are such good company, after all. I find you ... interesting, Archivist.”This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. An interest isn’t necessarily dangerous, if there were sufficient safeguards. Maybe some ground rules. Maybe, just maybe, he could learn something.





	i'm not giving up (i'm just giving in)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has derailed so far from where it started but i actually really like it. completely with lovely art from the wonderful [Jenavira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenavira/pseuds/j%20quadrifrons) ([@backofthebookshelft](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) found [here](https://www.ravelry.com/projects/jenavira/watching-waiting)
> 
> Enjoy!

Michael is in his flat when he gets home. Jon doesn’t know how to react so he chooses not to, going about his normal routine as if he wasn’t there, carefully tense, ready for an attack that never comes. Michael doesn’t seem offended, instead following him around in silence as he hangs up his coat and finds something to eat that he won’t have to cook. 

Jon insists that he wait outside the door while he changes out of his work clothes. (He just wants to maintain some semblance of dignity.)

The silence grows oppressive, slowly drowning out every thought in his head, until, finally, he can’t take it anymore.

“Okay, tell me, why are you here?” His voice is sharper than he intended but Michael only smiles. It isn’t an expression that suits him well, all sharp angles and impossible edges, and Jon has to fight the sudden impulsive urge to touch his mouth, find out what that unnatural expression feels like under his hands.

He doesn’t answer for a few moments and Jon looks away from where Michael studies his face intently, choosing to inspect the hem of his shirt rather than maintain the maddening eye contact any longer. Eventually he laughs, ever an unsettling sound.

“I wanted to see you. You are such good company, after all. I find you ... interesting, Archivist.”

“Oh god, okay.” This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. An interest isn’t necessarily dangerous, if there were sufficient safeguards. Maybe some ground rules. “Listen, you can’t just show up in my flat whenever you please. I don’t care how interesting you think I am.” 

Maybe, just maybe, he could learn something.

“Oh, but I brought coffee!” He holds out a paper cup from a local cafe and Jon takes a moment to wonder where Michael had been keeping it. He accepts it reluctantly, cautiously taking a drink to hide his discomfort. Much to his confusion, the coffee is perfect. Strong, with just a little cream, no sugar. He has no idea how Michael knows his coffee order and doesn’t care to ask. He takes another drink to avoid needing to reply and finds that Michael’s smile is just as disturbing the second time.

Jon can’t seem to find his words after that, something that hadn’t often been an issue for him before but that he now finds himself contending with more and more. It’s unpleasant, not having the words to express the thoughts in his mind. He sits in silence, drinking his coffee, and Michael seems content to let the silence linger.

He doesn’t leave for four hours, most of which they spend in silence that gradually grows strangely comfortable, a direct counterpoint to the first silence. He watches Jon intently as he goes about cleaning some of the chaos that has overtaken his flat, not offering to help, but staying out of the way. 

After, he joins Jon on the couch where he sits to read over his notes from that day, desperately trying to make sense of what he’s learning, looking for something he missed that will shed some light on the Unknowing and how exactly Gertrude planned to deal with it, if she even had a plan.

He forgets Michael is there as he gets into it, and nearly jumps out of his skin when, an hour in, he stands to get a glass of water and sees him lounging on the opposite end of the couch like he has nothing better to be doing.

Impulsively, he decides to get Michael a drink as well, although he has never seen him eat or drink anything besides coffee. He accepts the glass readily enough, looking pleased by the gesture. Instead of seeking answers to the now burning question of whether or not Michael can actually eat or drink, he asks something else that had been on his mind.

“Does your… god? Patron? Whatever? Does it care that you’re here, and not out, I don’t know, forcing insanity on unsuspecting people? It can’t be getting much out of you sitting on my couch, watching me read.”

Michael studies him for a moment, a small hesitation before it answers. “I am free to do as I please, Archivist, within reason of course. I’m not going against it, so it does not concern itself. And besides, you make the most fascinating face when you concentrate, I have almost figured out how it works.”

He scrunches up his face, giving the impression of someone who has smelled something foul, if that someone’s face was just ever so slightly… wrong. Jon recognizes in the expression the barest hints of his own look of concentration, before it is ruined by Michael breaking into peals of mind-numbing laughter.

After that, Jon decides to start bouncing ideas off of him, given that he seems determined to share his space for the day. He has always thought better out loud and it’s pleasant to have something besides a tape recorder to talk to, even if Michael laughs every time he gets frustrated and the ever more frequent laughter grows no less dizzying with repetition, planting the flavor of blood behind his molars.

Michael gives him a cheerful wave when he finally leaves, long after the sun has set, through a door that appears in a corner of his bathroom.

“I’ll be seeing you again, Archivist.” The words are spoken pleasantly but carry the air of a threat nonetheless. The door, an ugly green, closes under its own authority and Michael is gone.

-

It becomes a regular thing. Michael shows up in his home, usually bringing coffee, and just stays. Sometimes he’s only with him for an hour before Michael has something else to do. Once he stayed for three days, lounging on his couch and rediscovering TV. He has a particular fondness for mystery shows, although he always declares the endings to be boring and predictable.

Slowly, his presence becomes commonplace enough not to frighten Jon everytime he forgets that he isn’t alone. He gradually grows more comfortable in Michael’s company.

Sometimes, frustrated, Jon asks any questions he can think of, rarely getting an answer but still asking for the few occasions when he does. He learns mostly trivial things, little details about the other entities, nothing overtly helpful but still more than he's gotten in months.

One night, when they are both too tired to pretend at discomfort- at least, Jon is tired; he isn’t sure that Michael ever gets tired- Jon makes the mistake of asking, offhandedly, how Michael came to be what he is now, if he was once human like Jane Prentiss. The strange peacefulness of the moment is broken when Michael stands from the couch with too much force, pushing it back across the hardwood floor with an ear splitting shriek.

Michael leaves, not saying one word but still conveying rage with every flash of something less than human in the flickering edges of his shape. 

The last Jon sees of him that night is his unnatural hands sliding out of view as he slams a door in his wake.

Michael doesn’t come back for three weeks and when he does appear again, Jon is (as always) in the shower. He knows he’s there before he speaks, can practically taste the anger radiating from the other side of the curtain. He chooses to stay silent, to let Michael speak first. 

Michael is quiet for so long Jon almost gives in to the temptation to say something, before he finally breaks the silence. “Your predecessor did this to me.” His voice is cold, devoid of all emotion. Jon forgets to breathe. “He was so loyal to her. She had a way of doing that, inspiring loyalty, and Michael Shelley fell prey to it so easily.” He spits the last word, careful emotionless facade breaking just long enough for Jon to sense the well of rage below.

“He trusted her. She was as accomplished a liar as any of mine, but he was so naive. He trusted her and she fed him to me. And now I am him and he is me and I lost everything I worked for. She did this to me, do you understand that. She did what she felt she had to to stop me, betraying his trust without a second thought.” He goes quiet again, still radiating anger, before he breaks the silence with a strangely human laugh.

“I wonder what you will eventually do to those who are foolish enough to trust you, Archivist.” 

Michael is gone, Jon knows without looking, and the water of the shower has run cold. He steps out, mind spinning with the knowledge of what Gertrude had been willing to do to achieve her goals. Part of him is terrified of what he will become. Another part of him feels regret for the loss of Michael Shelley in the name of a fight he hadn’t known he was part of. Yet another, quieter part of him wants his version of Michael to come back, although he isn't sure what he would say if he did.

He gets dressed and goes to bed.

-

Things mostly go back to normal, or at least the strange new version of normal where Michael spends half his time on Jon’s couch flicking through channels so fast they blur together and brings him coffee every time he comes to visit. John stops buying his own, mostly by accident, and thinks nothing of it. 

Things are still tense on the frequent occasions when Jon fails to keep his curiosity in check and asks one of the many questions that Michael deems unworthy of an answer.

The now regular visits often end in arguments, and the cold sound of a door slamming. The anger Michael holds for his title comes out at unexpected times, his moods changing almost as rapidly as the channel on the screen.

Still, they learn to coexist in the same space. Michael always seems to drift back to Jon when he isn’t occupied with his own business and Jon starts to anticipate the doors that materialize in random corners of his house without warning. Michael mocks him for bringing work home but goes quiet whenever he sits to record another statement at his table. He finds himself missing the sound of TV static when he’s alone. 

-

Jon is just turning to rinse the shampoo from his hair, irritable and tense, when he hears the sound of a door opening, one that is most certainly not his bathroom door. He has barely a second to react before Michael pulls open the shower curtain and sticks his head in.

“Hello, Archivist. I brought coffee.” Jon pulls the curtain out of Michael’s grip, the edges fraying against it’s fingers, and covers himself with as much dignity as he can manage. Michael watches as he does so.

Jon blames his sour mood on the absolutely useless day he’s had, getting nothing done in his constant search for a way to stop the Unknowing and growing more and more frustrated as the day had gone by until he had stormed out of his office and declared that he was calling it a day.

So it only makes sense that his bad day is the cause for his snappish mood, rather than the itching feeling under his skin as Michael looks at him, with the same intent expression he always wears when he watches Jon, like he wants nothing more than to push him just to see how far he could bend before he broke. Jon is sick of fighting with the part of himself that wants to let him try just to satisfy his own curiosity.

“Now is not a good time, Michael. Get out.” He only barely keeps his tone civil, irritated at himself for how little control he has over his mind. Michael seems not to notice his ire and waves cheerfully with the hand not somehow managing to clutch a drink carrier as he leaves through the real door.

Jon sighs and finishes rinsing his hair as quickly as possible before leaving the shower and dressing. He hesitates only a second to get his renegade thoughts under control before following Michael out the door.

Michael is seated in the only chair in his kitchen, coffee cup in hand and one sitting on the opposite side of the table, presumably for Jon. It is almost unbearably sweet when Jon takes a sip. He refrains from gagging but only just.

Nonetheless, Michael laughs. “You don’t like it? No, I had thought you wouldn’t. That one is mine.” He presents Jon with the cup he had been holding, smile on its face. The smile is, as always, somehow wrong, in an undefinable, maddening sort of way. Jon avoids looking at him as he takes the proffered cup, taking a sip to find his own order, perfect as always.

He looks up again, and Michael takes a drink of his own coffee, mouth fitted to the same place Jon’s own had been just a moment before. Jon shoves that thought down with as much force as he can, but he’s still unnerved and it makes him unusually short tempered.

“So, what do you want?” His tone is clipped, but Michael’s grin doesn’t waver.

“To bring you coffee, I already told you.”

“Yes, you did. And that is your only reason for interrupting my shower?” Michael laughs, a horrible, twisted sound. It hurts Jon’s head and he tastes metal on his tongue.

“Of course! I wasn’t aware that I needed another reason, Archivist?”

“Yes, you do! And it’s considered polite to knock before coming in, especially when you aren't wanted.”

Michael stands and pats Jon’s shoulder. He instinctively flinches away from the deceptively agile fingers, and Michael catches his eye and smirks. It still sits wrong on his face, like there’s too many bones behind it. A door appears in the middle of the kitchen wall.

“I will certainly keep that in mind. Until next time.” He exits Jon’s flat with another mind numbing laugh, leaving Jon half showered at his table wondering when he grew to know that laughter well enough to tell that something about it wasn’t right.

-

The door to Jon’s office opens under its own power and he has only a moment to sigh before the head of blond curls pokes through, the rest of Michael following after. He perches himself on the edge of his desk, for once looking almost entirely mortal. The only sign that he is less than human are his eyes, still the same unfathomable color that defies rationality; Jon wonders if he would go mad if he looked too long.

Michael doesn’t give him a chance to find out, standing from his seat when Jon doesn’t immediately say something, and moving around the office poking at things on the shelves. He looks strangely dishevelled, his normally incomprehensible form… off somehow, and Jon realizes that he is concerned, before brutally quashing the feeling beneath his own ever-present curiosity.

“Why are you here, besides to snoop through my things?”

“I find you irresistibly fascinating, Archivist. Also, I brought coffee.” At that, he produces a cup from god knows where. Jon can’t help laughing, and then he speaks without stopping to consider what he’s saying.

“I think I've started counting on your coffee visits, I ran out and I keep forgetting to buy my own.” He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he is surprised when Michael reacts to his statement by drawing away, strangely human face completely expressionless. 

“I think it is time for me to leave, Archivist. Have a lovely day.” He turns to leave before Jon can respond, but before he can even reach for a door handle, Jons office door opens again and Tim walks in, mouth open to say something before he realizes that Jon is not alone.

His expression goes from neutral to hostile the moment he sees Michael and his posture shifts from relaxed to defensive. “What the fuck are you doing here?” His tone is flat and cold and Michael matches him.

“I was just leaving.”

-

It’s almost a month before he sees Michael again, not that he knows the exact date. He goes home after the incident at the Archives and ends up in an empty warehouse with Nikola Orsinov slicing through his flesh and the only thing on his mind is whether or not he’s going to survive this.

He’s given up hope by the time Michael walks through a burnt orange door set into the wall of his prison, looking as if he’s enjoying himself.

“Oh Archivist, look how much trouble you managed to get into without me. I hope you aren’t in too much pain, I would hate for your death to be… anti-climactic.” Jon flinches away from his hands as he rips the tape off of his mouth, weary mind still catching up to the fact that he is being rescued, in a way.

The razor edged fingers cut into his flesh where Michael removes the tape from his wrists and ankles, fresh trickles of blood sliding down his skin to join older trails before dripping to the floor. Jon feels nothing but relief that he isn't dead. 

“W-why are you here?” His throat is sore and dry from screaming and it takes him a moment to get the words out, and when he does Michael turns around with such a dark expression that he almosts regrets the question. 

“I am here because I am the only one that gets to kill you, Archivist. And while I had certainly planned to wait, if it must happen now, I still intend to be the one to do it.” His voice is cold, and angrier than Jon has heard him sound in a while.

He surrenders to his death; he surrenders to Michael.

And then there is a locked door, and a scream like dying, and Michael is gone, replaced by Helen Richardson, or at least something wearing her face and Jon is too exhausted to object as she shunts him through a door and back to the Archives.

A lot of things happen after that, and he doesn’t have a chance to think of Michael before he’s off to stop the Stranger’s ritual, and after that, well, he isn’t doing much thinking.

-

Jon wakes to the scent of coffee, and a knife pressed to his neck. He hears someone yelp in surprise somewhere to the left of his bed and then a hand flashes through his line of sight, ripping the blade from his throat.

“You said you just wanted to talk to him! You swore you weren’t going to hurt him!’ Georgie sounds furious, but her palm rests on Jon’s shoulder like she wants to comfort him. It takes him a moment to process anything beyond her touch, the first gentle contact he’s had in a long time.

Slowly the room around him comes into focus and he sits up sharply when he sees Michael standing at his bedside, knife in hand, glaring at Jon. 

Michael looks… human. Completely and utterly normal, and that is far more disconcerting to see than the distortion had ever been. He also looks entirely enraged, as if the only thing preventing him from killing Jon is Georgie, standing between Michael and the rail of the hospital bed. 

“I am a liar. You should know better than that.” Even the mocking laugh sounds normal, and for once Jon’s head doesn’t throb when he speaks. 

“My god, what happened. How long have I been out?” As soon as he speaks Georgie’s attention is back on him, turning her back on Michael as if he wasn’t there. Her hands are soft and her eyes are gentle and beneath it all is the tiniest trace of regret.

“It's been almost six months, Jon. I’m sorry. Your friend from work has been here most of the time, but she left as soon as he showed up.” Her expression is cold and disdainful as she glares over her shoulder at Michael. “He swore he was just another friend of yours that wanted to see how you were.”

“He is, kind of. A friend that is.” His throat is dry and he wants nothing more than a drink, but both Michael and Georgie are between him and the coffee. “He saved my life a few times. And then I thought that he had died, trying to kill me?” 

The last is addressed to Michael, and he hardly registers Georgie’s angry huff. Michael sneers.

“It only counts if its an actual question, Archivist. And my, you really are the Archivist now, more so than Gertrude ever was. Your Elias would be proud.”

Jon forces himself upright, reaching past Georgie for the cup on the bedside stand and drinking half of it in one go, barely noticing the burn in his throat. He makes eye contact with Michael- noting, in some distant corner of his mind that Michael’s eyes are blue, normal human blue- and asks, for real this time. “What happened when you disappeared?”

Michael resists only for a moment, just to prove that he can, Jon thinks, before he answers. “I was severed. I once described myself to you as a limb of the Distortion. I am now a limb that was cut off.”

“You’re human again?”

“Not exactly. I have none of the power I had before but I can still feel that I am not… human. And you, Archivist? Can you really claim to be human anymore?”

Jon tenses, ready for uncomfortable questions he doesn’t know how to answer, when the door opens, admitting Basira who looks like she’s expecting a war. She and Michael glare at one another over Jon’s bed until Michael laughs, stuffing his knife in a pocket. 

“Hello, Detective. Its been a few days since I last saw you around the Archive.”

Basira’s stare is still cool, and her voice is like ice. “I’ve been away.”

“Mmm, too busy to be here when your precious Archivist woke up.” He brushes past her, slamming the door behind him as he had so many times in Jon’s flat.

Georgie follows soon after, with one final concerned look in Jon’s direction that he carefully avoids meeting.

-

“So Michael? He seemed- you two seemed familiar?” He’s careful, phrasing it as a statement and not a question, trying to keep the compulsion out of his voice. Basira flicks her eyes in his direction, not looking directly at him, and looks away again just as fast. 

“He came to the Archives, not long after the Unknowing. Wanted to see you, wanted to kill you, I think. I talked him down, mostly. Told him you were as good as dead,” Jon winces but doesn’t interrupt her, “that there was no point. He seemed… a little lost, I think. I dunno, I offered him a job.”

“And he took it? Seriously?”

“No, he laughed in my face and stormed out. Didn’t see him again for a month and then suddenly he was at the Archive more than he wasn’t. Mostly he gets on everyone’s nerves. I think Melanie was going to kill him soon.”

“So we’re just letting a former Distortion avatar hang around the Archives? Are we sure that’s a good idea?”

Basira’s face goes cold. “We aren’t doing anything. I am letting him stay. There’s no telling what trouble he could cause if left unsupervised and as it is, he may be useful. You have been gone six months, Jon. A lot has changed, you might want to catch up quick.” She slams the door on her way out and Jon can’t help the way he flinches away from the familiar sound.

-

Michael finds him after he wakes up. He’s sore, and still exhausted, and the cruel glee on Michael’s face is too much.

“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t. Just get out.”

“Oh Archivist, how do you know I was going to say anything? Maybe I just wanted some company.” He laughs, a mocking sound, and shoulders past Jon into the office, deliberately elbowing him in the side and leaving Jon doubled over in the doorway.

“After all, the man who was enough of a fool to willingly step into the Distortion and trade a rib for a statement has to be more interesting than anyone else I could visit.” Jon gingerly makes his way to the chair opposite his desk, facing Michael where he lounges in Jon’s own office chair.

“I was low on options. Nothing else seemed to be working.”

“Mm. yes, I’d heard about your previous… attempts. Finding out how very inhuman you are now, Archivist? Does it bother you? You fought so hard to save them and now you aren’t even one of them anymore. Even those closest to you hate you for what you’re becoming.”

“I’m still human. I’m just… also something else.” It doesn’t sound convincing even to Jon himself, and Michael doesn’t even dignify the statement with a proper response. He just laughs, and Jon has never hated that sound so much. 

Michael’s laughter tells him everything he ever needs to know about his humanity, and he can’t stand to hear it, so much worse now than it ever sounded before. He stands without another word and leaves his own office, Michael still laughing at his desk.

-

“I wasn’t sure you were going to come back. No one has ever escaped that coffin, and while it is true that if anyone could, it would be you, I was still not entirely convinced you would.” Michael’s voice is soft, barely carrying over the electronic hum of Jon’s computer. 

Jon had been surprised to find Michael sat at his desk with a cup of coffee when he retreated to his office to give Daisy and Basira privacy while they talked. He had sneered at him when he asked for his seat but had nonetheless stood, moving to the other side of the desk while Jon collapsed in his chair. 

He was filthy and was contemplating getting a change of clothes when Michael spoke, and then Jon forgot about changing.

“No one else has ever gotten out?” He doesn’t want to think about all of the other people he heard in the coffin, doesn’t want to consider the idea that they may never get out, had tried to believe that if he could get out, so could they. The knowledge that what he did was impossible is too much for him to handle.

“It really was a remarkably stupid decision. I think I’m impressed; the former Archivist would have just sent someone in for her. I should have known you would jump at the chance to sacrifice yourself instead.”

“Well maybe that’s it then. You aren’t Michael Shelley, and I’m not Gertrude Robinson. Maybe that’s the point. We are both more than the people who came before us.” They don’t talk after that, Michael seemingly finally run out of sarcastic remarks and Jon too tired to think.

A few minutes later, Jon slips into fitful sleep, lulled by the quiet sound of Michael’s breathing.


End file.
